Human Rights Organizations Demand Closure of Guantánamo Migrant Detention Camp

One hundred twenty-five human rights organizations sent a letter to President Biden October 16, demanding that the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center be closed. The detention camp is especially being used to detain Haitians as well as others. Organizers brought forward the horrendous conditions at the detention camp, which houses children and families. These included lack of sanitation and medical care, lack of education for the children and the collective punishment used against people in the camp who reject these conditions and demand they be changed.

Organizers brought out that Guantánamo serves as a black hole where people are indefinitely detained, blocked from seeing lawyers and separated from their families and friends. As remains true for the prison, using Guantánamo serves to keep the detentions, punishments and government racism out of the public eye. It is a means to evade U.S. legal requirements to hear claims for asylum, and lawsuits and legal challenges concerning conditions.

The U.S. has a long history of specifically targeting Haitian refugees, and Haiti itself, as part of its revenge against the Haitian revolution that eliminated slavery and established a state based on human rights for all. As one of the organizers brought out, there is a connection between the targeting and slandering of Haitians in Springfield, Ohio and using Guantánamo to detain them. It is part of the U.S. racism, chauvinism and violence against Haiti and her people. Another brought out that Guantánamo has long been used to detain Haitians, with lawsuits defending their rights dating back to 1993.

Among the 125 organizations were those also organizing to close migrant detention camps inside the U.S. Both Guantánamo and detention camps inside the country are scheduled for expansion. Currently Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains more than 36,600 people in a network of more than 200 immigration detention camps across the country. This year, Biden signed a federal spending bill that increases funding for ICE to maintain an average daily population of 41,500 people in detention and provides the highest level of funding for custody and surveillance operations in ICE's history.

Detention camps inside the country also have horrendous conditions and similarly lack medical care, clean water, food and safe and sanitary living conditions. Hunger strikes, especially by women, have been organized to reject these conditions.

The demand is to immediately close Guantánamo and all detention camps and uphold the dignity and rights of immigrants and refugees.

We reprint below the letter to President Biden:

"The undersigned 125 organizations implore the Biden administration to stop detaining asylum seekers at Guantánamo Bay and to allow people interdicted at sea to seek protection in the United States. At a time when the administration is contemplating expanding the use of Guantánamo to detain Haitians who flee by sea, we urge you instead to process all asylum seekers in a manner consistent with human rights obligations and to close the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center.

"People who had no choice but to flee by sea to escape persecution in their home countries shared their horrifying experiences at Guantánamo in Offshoring Human Rights: Detention of Refugees at Guantánamo Bay, a new report by the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). One family, including two children, was interdicted by the U.S. Coast Guard and transferred to a dilapidated detention facility in Guantánamo Bay where they were held until IRAP threatened to file a lawsuit. The U.S. government denied them access to their attorneys and engaged in collective punishment in response to complaints about their treatment. For over a year, the U.S. government deprived the children of appropriate access to education, medical care, and mental health support, leading a physician at the Naval base to recommend their immediate release.

"Of equal concern is the U.S. government's practice of returning individuals interdicted at sea back to harm in their country of origin. Despite opposition from the United Nations and Members of Congress, the U.S. Coast Guard continues to interdict and repatriate Haitians to warzone-like conditions in Haiti. The U.S. government interdicted more than 11,000 people of different nationalities from October 2022 to September 2023 and sent almost 500 unaccompanied children back to Haiti. These policies and practices prevent asylum seekers from being able to access humanitarian protections in the United States.

"The United States has a disgraceful history of using Guantánamo Bay to operate secretive prisons away from public and legal scrutiny. We demand that your administration close the Guantánamo Migrant Operations Center and process asylum seekers encountered at sea in a manner consistent with U.S. human rights obligations. The U.S. government cannot continue to hide its diversion and mistreatment of asylum seekers by exiling them to Guantánamo, out of reach of their families, advocates, public consciousness -- and the law."

This article was published in

Friday, November 1, 2024

Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/ITN2024/Articles/TI54444.HTM

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